Our 8th wedding anniversary
Today is the eighth anniversary of our marriage, and we’re off to a two-day holiday in the mountains north of here to celebrate.
I created a card for Shonnie and gave it to her this morning:
Happy anniversary, my sweet Shonnie!
The longer we’re together, the more certain I am that we’re supposed to be. We’ve created such a rich and fulfilling life together in just eight (plus 2.5) years together, I look forward to seeing what we manifest in the coming decade. I love you, I love you, I love you!
Bruce
And Shonnie responded with a card and a note of her own:
Once upon a time
two people fell in love . . .
They took every smile and every tear,
a few differences of opinion,
some major triumphs,
and several minor miracles,
and turned them into something very beautiful.
I love what we’ve made together.
I love you.In just 8 years of marriage we’ve been on such a fantastic, interesting, challenging, opening, expanding, enjoyable journey. As this card says, “I love what we’ve made together.” I look forward to many more memories as we travel into our future. I feel confident in our abiity to find/create/follow the best life path for us and I feel grateful that we are so good at sharing all parts of the journey with love, grace, humor, agility and strength.
With love and gratitude, Shonnie
Yesterday I wrote about how we’ve created a rich and rewarding relationship. Below are my thoughts on this:
* * *
Tomorrow we will have been married eight years. In addition, we lived together for more than two years prior to our marriage. Our relationship continues to grow, deepen and become more fulfilling. Some of the reasons for this include:
We were both clear about what we wanted in a primary relationship (and what we didn’t want) before committing to one another. In fact, I (Bruce) had a four-page typed list of attributes I wanted in a mate. Approximately ten of these were non-negotiable, including authenticity, integrity, compassion, physical attractiveness, athleticism, and commitment to personal and spiritual growth. By going through this process, I gained the clarity I needed as to who I was looking for and where they’d be hanging out. Then the Universe responded. I met Shonnie at a marathon training group in Austin in the summer of 1995.
We have a clear vision about where we want to go together. We are not on the exact same path, but we do have a similar vision of where we want to go in terms of right livelihood, spirituality, personal growth, sustainability, and service. To paraphrase Neale Donald Walsch, the two questions that must be answered are “Where are you going?” and “Who’s going with you?” And they must be answered in that order. Not to do so presents problems for couples, if not now, then somewhere down the road.
Our values are in alignment. We were clear that we both valued love, compassion, honesty, integrity, authenticity, commitment, impeccability, emotional and spiritual growth, generosity, service, gratitude, playfulness, and simplicity early in our relationship.
We made a deep and abiding commitment up front, and we keep that commitment. Before we moved in together, we created agreements about how we would be with one another. And before we married we created marriage vows for the ceremony and as commitments for how we would live our lives together.
We meet regularly to review our vows/commitments, acknowledge one another, and tell our truths. In fact, at each evening meal we state at least one thing we’re grateful for, then acknowledge each other for at least one thing they did that day.
We tell the truth. Each of us tells the truth even when we believe it might be challenging for the other to hear. And we do our best to really listen when that truth is being told.
We focus on what is working in the relationship and the positive attributes of one another. The tendency in today’s culture is to focus on what’s not working and what we don’t like about our partners. To do so, guarantees that more of the same will be created. On the other hand . . .
We clean up our space as we go. We step over nothing. For example, if I (Bruce) do something thoughtless, disrespectful or unloving, Shonnie has committed to bring it to my attention in a way that I can hear it.
We refuse to hold onto ill will. This is the real relationship killer–resentment that has built up over weeks, months, years and creates walls between partners. We have a process that we use regularly to cleanse ourselves of resentment.
We support each other to be fully authentic, rather than try to get our partner to become the person we sometimes might like him/her to be.
Thanks to all of you who have acknowledged us on our special day. And thanks to those of you–family and friends–who helped create our marriage weekend May 28-30, 1999 (see photo above). This remains one of our fondest memories during all of our time together.
Publicity hounds Lavender and Mulkey are at it again!
In our ongoing promotional campaign for I Do! I Do! The Marriage Vow Workbook, Shonnie and I were featured in a recent AP column, “On the Money.” This story, along
with photos, has appeared in 20+ newspapers around the country including the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the Sacramento Bee and the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
The photo to the right shows us with the bowls we use to manage our money, a system we learned at a Peak Potentials workshop in Atlanta. We have set up six bowls to divide up our money for day-to-day expenses and other things we want to do, like giving to worthy organizations, investment, education and just having fun. (Chuck Burton–AP Photo)
Couples can find joint money strategies
By EILEEN ALT POWELL — AP Business Writer
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
NEW YORK (AP) Bruce Mulkey and Shonnie Lavender have a lot in common when it comes to love and marriage, but not when it comes to money.
Mulkey and Lavender met more than a decade ago while training for a marathon. They married in 1999 and shared their thinking about marital commitment in their book “I Do! I Do! The Marriage Vow Workbook.” But the Asheville, N.C., couple said it took them a long time to figure out how to handle their finances together. (more…)
Creating your ideal relationship
Yes, you can create the relationship you’ve been longing for. Doing so takes willingness, and it takes commitment. More than anything, however, it requires the awareness that you create your own reality. No one else is responsible. Just you. So if you really want something other than the reality you’re currently living, fully commit to the seven behaviors below and begin creating something different for yourself. You’re welcome to check out a post from my personal blog (“My story and I’m sticking with it”) to learn how my relationship with my wife, Shonnie, was manifested.)
1. Fully commit to one another. Making a commitment to someone is ultimately a matter of choice. So there’s really no excuse not to fully commit to your partner. What’s more, being committed can be deeply liberating. No more looking around for someone better, no more “should I stay or should I go,” no more exit strategies. You’re in all the way, and you can relax and enjoy it.
2. Be clear about your purpose in life and live it fully. Get in touch with your purpose in life. Why are you here? What would you be doing if you didn’t believe you had to earn a living? What will you ultimately do with this one cherished life that you have been given? Discover your individual purposes and support each other to go for them with gusto.
3. Create a compelling vision for your relationship. Envision what you want to create, your biggest dreams for yourselves–individually and together. Then, on a regular basis imagine that your vision has already come to pass, and feel the feelings that accompany this visualization. Presto, you’re on your way to attracting what you want into your life and making it a reality.
4. Make and keep your agreements with one another. Make agreements about how you will be with one another and what you will do together to move yourselves toward your vision. These can be marriage vows, recommitment vows or any other type of agreements you choose. Create a regular ritual during which you review your agreements, speak them aloud to one another and, with no recrimination, recommit to those that you haven’t upheld.
5. Make your word law. When you tell your partner (or anyone else) that you’ll do something, do it. No excuses. When you get right down to it, your word is all you have. By consistently keeping it, you’ll nurture your self-esteem and engender trust between you and your partner.
6. Really listen to one another. Listening is a skill that few truly master. When our partner is speaking, we’re often thinking about our response to what is being said, discounting our partner’s thoughts because they doesn’t match up with our beliefs, wondering what’s for dinner, etc. Practice really listening to your partner, then mirror back what was said so he/she really knows you got the true intention of the words that were spoken.
7. Acknowledge one another regularly. To create a great relationship it’s essential that we really acknowledge our partner’s achievements, be it something they’ve done, something they’ve said or a way of being they’ve exhibited. Some words and phrases that are meant for speaking aloud often and with feeling:
- Congratulations!
- Well done! Way to go!
- Thank you.
- What I know to be true about you is . . .
- I love you just as you are.
- When I’m with you, I feel . . .
To be continued . . .
Second wedding vows from Elizabeth & Carroll
Below are the wedding vows from Elizabeth and her second husband, Carroll. These unique wedding vows show how different second marriages can be from first marriages for some couples.
Elizabeth Pavka & Carroll Thompson, December 28, 1991
In love, we two have become one that we may each nourish the independent expansiveness of the other;
We together seek that higher spirituality which is for all humans;
We acknowledge joy and laughter as the wings of life;
We caress the Earth as our beloved home in space;
We recognize the stars as relatives to the light in us;
We cherish our individuality and our separateness as the binding agents which drew us together as one, yet hold us apart as two;
We affirm all humans are one people, all life one life, all Spirit one Spirit;
We face the frontier of our personal spiritual development with joy;
We now unite our hearts, souls, bodies, energies, minds, senses, and emotions, that we each may more fruitfully serve the higher purposes we have accepted for ourselves;
God is Love. Love is Light. Light is God in us.
We came as two. We go as one. We are in Universal Union.
Podcast — Meet Shonnie Lavender & Bruce Mulkey
Whether you’re new to the I Do! I Do! blog or you’ve been visiting for awhile, you may be wondering about how we came to be “relationship experts.” Well, actually, we believe our true expertise is solely within OUR relationship. That being said, we have years of experience with dating, un-dating, finding one’s “ideal” partner, commitment, and marriage. We even know plenty about divorce from personal experience (Bruce as someone who has divorced and remarried. Shonnie as a person whose parents divorced and remarried.) So, that means our experience also covers a wide range of topics that affect most couples, including, yet definitely not limited to:
- couples and money issues
- sexuality and intimacy
- communication
- joint decision making
- making up and forgiveness
- sharing household and other duties
- extended family issues
- family transitions
Because our intention is to build a community at I Do! I Do! (Maybe we call that “We Do! We Do!”), we want to get to know one another. So, we’ll start the conversation with this podcast (Simply turn on your speakers and click the “audio mp3″ graphic or “Play Now” text to play the podcast file – 18 minutes.), where we tell you about:
- our backgrounds — can you say May-December?
- how we met — involves mildly crazy ideas, sweat, and lots of runners
- our wedding — it landed us in a Christian Science Monitor story titled, “Nutty Nuptials”
- our history writing marriage/wedding vows — we are one committed couple
- how we came to write I Do! I Do! The Marriage Vow Workbook — a winding path led us to this destination
- our intention with the book — can we change the world one relationship at a time?
Now it’s your turn. We want to meet you. So, leave a comment telling us a bit about yourself(selves), what you’re going for in your relationship, and any questions you’d like us to answer about love, marriage, wedding vows or anything else that would support you in creating and maintaining your ideal relationship.
Marriage advice offered on WCQS radio
On Tuesday, October 10 we were interviewed on WCQS, the public radio station based in Asheville, North Carolina. Host David Hurand talked with us for 30 minutes about
- what it takes to write your own wedding vows,
- the benefits of writing your wedding vows, and
- how the process we take you through in I Do! I Do! The Marriage Vow Workbook can help you build a strong foundation for marriage or improve the marriage you’ve already created.
We also answered questions from callers about relationships and wedding vows. Listen to the interview, then let us know what questions you have.
Since this is my third marriage, how can I write credibly about the importance of wedding vows?
Good question. And given the fact that I coauthored I Do! I Do! The Marriage Vow Workbook, I figure sooner or later someone will ask it. So here’s the answer:
Both of my former wives were lovely and loving women, and my time with them was filled with periods of deep connection as well as periods of great challenge. However, being immature and irresponsible, I knew very little about commitment–what it meant to be faithful to a significant other. In addition, there were no basic agreements in my first two marriages about how we would be with one another and how we would sustain our relationship. It was like trying to play a baseball game without any rules. How many outs per inning? Three? Four? Five? Is catching the ball on one hop an out or do you have to catch it on the fly? Without such an essential element of a successful long-term relationship, it’s really no wonder that we ultimately grew apart and divorced.
After my second divorce, I retreated to a little cottage in the hills outside Austin, Texas. I had been with an uninterrupted stream of women my entire life–first my mom, next my girlfriends, then my two wives–and now was a time for me to focus on myself rather than the other. I lived there the better part of five years, with my cat, Chocolate, as my only companion. I got clear about who I was’not the macho, tough guy I sometimes pretended to be, but not the wimpy, new-age guy either. I got clear about my purpose in life. And I got clear about the kind of woman I wanted to share my life with. And wouldn’t you know it: As soon as I put my explicit intention out to the Universe, the woman of my dreams showed up.
Though totally unaware of one another’s existence, both Shonnie and I serendipitously joined a marathon training program during the hot Austin Texas summer of 1995. Based on a time trial, we both were placed in the intermediate runners, a group composed of approximately thirty runners. As our group’s numbers dwindled in the months preceding the race, a handful of us continued to train together at Lake Austin every Saturday morning, completing the Austin Motorola Marathon together in February 1996. And though the remaining members of our group sometimes went out for pancakes at the Magnolia Cafe after our weekly runs, we typically didn’t see each other outside our workouts. So one Saturday we made plans to go out for music and a few beers. When the appointed time arrived, however, only two runners showed up–me and Shonnie. And the rest, as they say, is history.
A few months later when Shonnie and I entered a committed relationship, we decided we would create commitments and an intention for our relationship before we moved in together. Thus we had agreements about how we would be with one another that served us right from the beginning, agreements that still hang on our bedroom wall. When we were preparing for our marriage, we devoted a lot of time and attention to the creation our marriage vows and our intention for our marriage. With these sacred commitments in place, we’re clear about which behaviors are acceptable and which are not. We’re assured that neither of us has any intention of deliberately doing or saying anything disrespectful or unloving. We give each other permission to speak up when he/she sees something that’s incongruent in the other’s words or actions. We support one another to grow, to expand, to fully be oneself. We acknowledge our individual and joint successes and commiserate when things don’t turn out as we’d planned. We envision our future together and work to create it. All of this from our steadfast love for one another and these sacred vows we are pledged to uphold.
“Getting the Love You Want”: A timeless and extraordinary resource for all couples
I recently renewed my acquaintance with a book that’s had a significant influence on my
life–Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples, the classic relationship handbook by Harville Hendrix, Ph.D. This book remains an essential addition to the library of couples who want to create loving, fulfilling, joyful and enduring relationships. The exercises in Part III of the book are themselves invaluable and can empower willing couples to deal with the challenges that arise in every relationship and, perhaps, eliminate repeated visits to the marriage counselor.
First published in 1988, I first came upon this book in the early 1990s. My second marriage had just gone down the tubes, and I was struggling to understand why. How could my former wife have left me when just a few short years ago, she was so totally in love with me?
It was not until I read Getting the Love You Want, that I realized I was relying on her to take care of me, to somehow make me whole, responsibilities she had not signed up for, needs that were impossible for her to satisfy. So I began a process of deep introspection: How did I help create the breakdown of my relationship and, ultimately, how I could go about initiating a more conscious relationship the next time around?
A few years later, a number of Harville’s exercises included in Part III of Getting the Love You Want played a significant role in forming the foundation for my romantic partnership with the woman who I would later marry, including:
- Creating a joint vision for the relationship–Being clear about what each of us envisioned for our relationship
- Mirroring–Learning to really hear what my partner is saying and letting her know I have done so
- Re-romanticizing–Sharing specific information with one another about what pleases me, what pleases her and agreeing to perform those acts of pleasure regularly
Today as I was re-examining Getting the Love You Want to write this review, I came upon the final exercise in the book–Visualization of Love. I instinctively began following the instructions–visualizing Shonnie as a whole spiritual being, who like all of us, has been wounded. And I imagined that the love I was sending her at that moment was healing her wounds. Finally I imagined the love I’d sent her coming back to me and healing my wounds. Afterwards I sat for a few moments in quiet gratitude–for my life, for Shonnie, for Harville and for the wisdom that he so readily shares with us.
Wedding vows from Tricia & Lance Secretan
Here are the original wedding vows of Tricia & Lance Secretan who married on May 29, 1993. They recite these unique romantic wedding vows to each other spontaneously and actively keep these commitments alive in the way they live.
I want you to know that I love you,
And I will for the rest of my days.
I will trust and respect you,
Tell the truth and embrace you.
Every day. All the time. And always.
For the rest of our lives together
Every day in your favor I’ll bend;
I’ll make rain seem like dew -
I’ll make you smile when you’re blue.
That’s forever and ever. Amen.
